How Hip-Hop Influences Fashion

From Run DMC to Runway: Hip-Hop’s Role in What We Wear Keeps Growing

PrintDarralynn Hutson

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Hip-hop culture has influenced the way people around the world express themselves and identify with each other for decades. From all corners of the globe, fans are financially swayed by their rap icons, so much so, hip-hop itself is now serving as a major source of inspiration for the most elite fashion houses.

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At the 2018 MET Gala (dubbed the Oscars of the fashion world) hosts included not only the event’s annual chair, Vogue’s Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour, but also Rihanna. Noteworthy invitees included rappers 2 Chainz, Migos, Wiz Khalifa, Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Jaden Smith and A$AP Ferg, who garnered a wealth of social media attention and photo coverage usually filled by fashion’s most elite.

Continuing to buck traditional fashion protocol, Cardi B sat front row alongside Wintour during Alexander Wang’s Autumn/Winter 2018 runway show at the former Condé Nast offices above New York’s Times Square. This seat, next to the most powerful figure in fashion, is typically reserved for A-list friends of the designers, powerful editors, industry exes — even royalty. The placement of the one of the hottest, most talked about female rappers today is a strong example of how high fashion has largely been influenced by hip-hop, which, in December 2017, surpassed rock to become the most popular music genre in the U.S.

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Rappers have long used designer fashion as a symbol of status, both in person as well as in their lyrics, and those stories have a direct influence on high-end fashion. It is evident even from hip-hop’s very beginning.

The ‘80s

Kangol bucket hats, chunky street-tuff gold chains, and name-plated necklaces with “Tonya” and “Lisa” written in cursive were all the rage. New York style with Adidas shell-toe trainers with wide white laces and black tracksuits were created by Run-D.M.C, LL Cool J, Funk Master Flash, The Fat Boys, and Big Daddy Kane, who were trendsetters in making authentic fashion statements.

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LL Cool J wore his then signature Kangol hat when few Americans knew anything about the European hat maker, but its association with hip-hop quickly invigorated the brand.

When Run-DMC sang about “My Adidas,” it at once pioneered the use of rap as a fashion advertisement and paved the way for the first endorsement deal between rap and clothing designers. In the mid ‘80s, the Adidas Superstar was an old basketball shoe, originally handed to players in 1969. The way Run-DMC wore their Superstars was different: The combination of sneakers without laces (similar to in prison, where they were removed to prevent inmates hanging themselves), black Lee jeans, leather goose-down jackets, Cazal glasses, and gold rope chains had long been the look of New York hustlers. But as earlier popular artists such as Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five were pushed by their labels into wearing flamboyant, shiny, post-disco gear, Run-DMC would successfully take the street look mainstream.

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The ‘90s

The rise of female rappers such as Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, and Salt-N-Pepa all ushered in black pride wearing Afrocentric fabrics, headwraps, large gold earrings, and asymmetric haircuts, which all symbolised a movement that gave rise to social conscious hip-hop.

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The genre had became a powerful mix of influences — especially for clothing — allowing for the interaction of two theories of fashion diffusion. The upper class of fashion leadership proposes that new styles are adopted or started by groups in higher social classes, and they are later adopted in the lower social classes. This theory explains the early emergence of hip-hop fashion in the ‘80s and ‘90s, when consumers adopted aspirational labels not typically marketed to them, black poor teens, and young adults.

In contrast, however, hip-hop artists wore styles from Polo, Timberland, and Tommy Hilfiger, drawn to their all-American, elite, country club appeal. Yet, in 1994, Timberland’s chief operating officer issued a public statement reassuring customers that the brand wasn’t abandoning it’s so-called core base for the urban market.

In 1991, designer Isaac Mizrahi incorporated hip-hop accessories such as African-inspired medallions into his New York Fashion Week runway show, while Anne Klein launched a clothing line especially based on rap music. Grand Puba name-dropped Hilfiger in his hit 1992 track “360° (What Goes Around)” and wore the designer’s clothes on various album covers. In 1994, Snoop Dogg donned a shirt emblazoned with the Tommy name on “Saturday Night Live,” gifted to him just hours before. The new yet immense popularity of the brand in the hip-hop community provided Hilfiger fueled growth and widespread brand resurgence since its founding 10 years prior.

In 1996, Tupac walked down the Versace runway during a fashion show in Milan. This might be one of the most spectacular visuals of just how intertwined hip-hop and high fashion were becoming.

The transformation of the hip-hop “look” to both a mass fashion and high fashion trend pushed hip-hop pioneer fashion labels such as Rocawear, Phat Farm, Karl Kani, and FUBU into iconic status.

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The ‘00s

The Courvoisier-guzzling, supermodel-dating, bling-bling decade of the 2000s became the next huge fashion influence derived from hip-hop culture. This evolution of the style suggested extreme wealth when hip-hop’s biggest stars began wearing more extravagant attire, while Snoop, Tupac, and Biggie were dressing like old-school mobsters in fedoras, bowler hats, large double-breasted suits, and expensive alligator shoes.

Coming off the bright and colorful ‘90s, the advancement of technology and travel brought a wide variety of influences to fashion, and it seemed like every rapper with a little bit of money and power attached his or her name to a clothing label. For every successful Sean Jean and Rocawear from the ‘90s, there was a failed Akoo, Nostic, Benjamin Bixby, and Outcast clothing from the aughts.

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Outside of full-blown fashion brands, some more obscure trends did make their way into the fashion mainstream. Sweatbands influenced by St. Louis rapper Nelly, which had a bizarre crossover appeal, became a sports accessory that young men — white and black — started wearing on completely non-athletic occasions.

One of the most universally known fashion trends of the aughts was the tall white tee. Mostly because an oversized white tee like a beeper signified drug dealer, tall tees were banned in bars and clubs, condemned in the media, and used by the police to profile assailants. Yet, when looking back at the era, the oversize tee of any color was status quo for high schoolers around the country.

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No hip-hop artist in recent memory has influenced high fashion more than Kanye West. When West released his first album “The College Dropout” in 2004, his prepped out style and popped collars was perfectly timed with the rise and dominance to then absurdly expensive teen retailer with uniquely Waspy appeal, Abercrombie & Fitch. It was a brand of prep Americana in every mall kids would save their money for just to have one of the brand’s ironic logo’d graphic tees.

The ‘10s to Today

Kanye's preppy, collegiate style stood out to begin with, but it was at the start of the 2010s that he came into his own with the creation of his profoundly popular collection Yeezy 1. Best known for his incredibly popular sneaker designs, West began designing footwear for Nike almost a decade ago. The Air Yeezy 1 and 2 collections gained instant popularity, setting new records for how much they demanded in resale prices. According to Business of Fashion, the collaboration had "the biggest impact on sneaker culture in the last decade."

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In 2015, West teamed up Adidas, Nike’s biggest competitor, on a line of apparel and footwear simply known as Yeezy, a project that has since reportedly transformed into a $10 million partnership. The Yeezy Boost 350s and 750s presented during the Yeezy Season 1 show sold out globally within 12 minutes and exceeded the resale records set by his collaborations with Nike, with some pairs selling for more than $6,000 on eBay.

West, who refers to himself as the first “hip-hop designer,” has also designed collaborations with Louis Vuitton, Balmain, Giuseppe Zanotti, and A.P.C., but it was his record-shattering collaboration with Adidas as the first deal of its kind with a non-athlete, set an industry precedent that paved the way for other similar hip-hop and sportswear collabos, including Rihanna’s cultlike brand FENTY, designed for Puma.

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West is also, according to GQ, directly responsible for the prospering partnership between rappers and high fashion: “Five years ago, no rapper (or rap fan, for that matter) considered buying Givenchy or Alexander Wang ... West's penchant for luxury brands and avant-garde designers paved the way for guys like A$AP Rocky." A$AP was most recently named the face of Dior Homme, and sat front row at Gucci’s Cruise show in Blenheim Palace.

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With hip-hops’ already immense impact on fashion in the past decades, future holds much promise for this marriage. To be involved with the hip-hop culture is to participate in the defining mood of the spirit of the time. Luckily, fashion and hip-hop aren’t inactive ideas. They’re constantly evolving in ways bold and barely perceptible — but always aiming to be in line with that ineffable quality of being cool.